


Just The Way You Are

by Maisie_top_trash



Series: Unseen - Fear Will Lose [40]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, Caretaking, Delusions, Depression, Fluffy, M/M, Mental Illness, OCD, Psychosis, Schizoaffective Disorder, Unconditional Love, carer, did I mention I think it’s cute?, discharge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 02:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maisie_top_trash/pseuds/Maisie_top_trash
Summary: Unseen Fear Will Lose is a series of single chapter stories showing unseen scenes from the same universe as my main story, Fear Will Lose. In order to fully enjoy these extra bits, I recommend you go and read that first.Fear Will LoseTyler’s only recently come home from his third admission, and it’s taking him a while to adjust. Everything is scary all the time. Thankfully Josh knows what his husband needs to hear and loves finally having the chance to sit and comfort him after all those weeks apart.





	Just The Way You Are

**Author's Note:**

> Potential TW for talking about delusions, especially food poisoning, and then referencing a purge and binge and abuse

“Lord, the light of your love is shining,” Josh sang under his breath as he started loading the next batch of whites into the tumble dryer whilst half their darks were in the middle of a cold wash cycle. Another pile of darks were ready to be ironed and folded, and he still had a basket full of delicates to hand wash.

“In the midst of the darkness, shining,”

Josh hadn’t had a chance to do any laundry since Tyler had been discharged from his latest inpatient admission. He was doing okay, all things considered, but his constant voices and anxiety meant he couldn’t tolerate being alone for even the short amount of time it would take Josh to shove their clothes into the appropriate machines, and so the pile of dirty laundry in their utility room had grown and grown and grown.

“Jesus, light of the world, shine upon us,”

After 3 weeks Josh had run out of clean clothes to wear. Tyler wasn’t in the position to be changing every day, in fact Josh felt proud when his husband was feeling up to changing his underwear after each of the baths Josh gave him twice a week. He’d been wearing the same hoodie and the same sweatpants every day since he’d been home, and they stunk, but Josh didn’t care that Tyler didn’t care. For the near future, the priority was survival, not personal hygiene.

Josh on the other hand was still dressing in a suit every day for work and soft slouching clothes each evening so that Tyler could cuddle up against him comfortably. Two outfits a day for 3 weeks had created a lot of laundry, and when Tyler had finally managed to be settled in the living room by himself for the first time that Saturday, it had given him a chance to do it at long last.

“Set us free by the truth you now bring us,”

He wasn’t good by himself. Every couple of minutes Josh went to check on him to make sure he was still calm and coping, and thankfully every check had been promising, but still Josh felt bad about leaving him for the short periods of time even though it was for essential reasons.

Josh had to leave him every day from 7 till 7 whilst he worked. Of course 12 hours alone was preposterous, so Tyler attended Campbell’s day patient program every morning for individual or group therapy, depending on the day. Then Amanda, his community psychiatric nurse, brought him back to their house after lunch and supervised him for a nap and an afternoon of resting until Josh could be there again. Without Amanda, Josh was certain that Tyler would have to still be in the hospital.

He’d applied for leave from work, even offering to go unpaid, but his boss had pulled out his contact of employment that stated he couldn’t leave a case incomplete, and Josh knew he’d never win an argument with a senior lawyer. With a very heavy heart, he had to admit defeat and turn up to the office every day, but he knew the work he’d been doing recently had been garbage, his mind too preoccupied with home.

“Shine on me,” Josh clicked his tongue four times in rhythm with the song of praise. “Shine on me,”

Nonetheless Josh was satisfied with his life presently. His husband had managed to be discharged from hospital after just 4 months and a couple of days, in spite of his care team warning Josh that they were looking at a 6 month admission, and the wellbeing of his husband was all that mattered to him.

“Josh?”  
“Oh hey handsome,” he looked up from where he sat on the floor of the utility room to see Tyler stood in the doorway, tugging on the sleeve of Josh’s hoodie that he wouldn’t take off.

“How’s the game?”  
“Game?” Tyler whispered back.  
“You’re watching the game, right? How’s it going?”  
“Oh, the game, uh, I, I, I haven’t really been payin attention,” he confessed quietly and Josh just smiled reassuringly.  
“That’s okay darling, it’s super hard to keep up with, I understand.”

“What are you doing?” Tyler took another step into the room.  
“I am doing laundry, so I’m currently trying to pair up these almost identical black socks of mine and regretting buying so many similar yet different types,” Josh explained with a little sigh and a chuckle. “It’s a lot of fun. Not.”

“I smell something,” Tyler murmured.  
“All the detergent and fabric softener maybe?”  
“S’different,”  
“I cooked up a whole load of mince in the kitchen, made a quick cottage pie with a quarter of it and once I’m done with these socks I’m also gonna make a lasagne and a chilli and some ragu for the freezer, just so we have some meals for the week and I can spend less time cooking and more time relaxing with you. Maybe you can smell the cooked meat?”

“Ragu?”  
“Yep,”  
“What, what’s that?”  
“You know ragu honey, it’s my special recipe, it’s, it’s like a rich Bolognese, I serve it with spaghetti just the same. You like it,”  
“I do?”  
“Yeah,” Josh nodded to remind him.  
“Oh,”  
“When the night comes for me to serve it, you can try a little bite, and if you don’t like it then you can have plain pasta, hey? With a little bit of grated cheese? Because I know you like that too.”  
“Yeh,” he said hesitantly, but Josh was patient.

“Do you feel ready for your afternoon nap?” He asked his husband, who’d been sleeping for at least an hour at 3pm every day he’d been home so far. Last Saturday Josh had tried to exploit that hour and get some housework done, but Tyler had woken up alone and didn’t stop screaming and hyperventilating for close to 10 minutes, so ever since Josh had to promise to lay with him the whole time.

“Not, not yet,”  
“Well you just let me know darling,”

“Did you wash our bedding?”  
“No, just in case you didn’t like the smell and preferred the familiarity of how it is right now, but if you want me to change it over then I have fresh linens in that cupboard,”  
“Oh, uh, okay,”  
“Would you like me to leave it how it is? Or swap it over?” Josh gave him time to think about the offer.  
“Leave it,”  
“Okay love, we’ll leave it one more week, then we’ll have a go at changing it over next Saturday, okay?” He gave his anxious husband a week’s notice for him to get his head around the change, and hoped that would be enough.

“Josh, is, is it time for my meds?”  
“We do meds with meals, don’t we? So you’ve had your breakfast ones, you’ve had your lunch ones, then we’ll do dinner ones later and nighttime ones when we go up to bed.”  
“So it’s not time for my meds?”  
“Not yet babe,” Josh clarified.

“Do you feel like you need them?”  
“I don’t, I, I, uh, maybe,”  
“Are the voices loud?”  
“Yeh,” Tyler whispered.

“You can have some PRN if you like?”  
“Can, can I just stay with you?”  
“Course you can baby,” he smiled. “Come sit with me,”  
“On the floor?” Ty was skeptical, shifting his weight from foot to foot uneasily.

“Here, is this any better? I just washed this, it’s clean and hopefully pretty comfy too,” Josh reached over and picked up a fluffy towel from his basket of folded laundry and put it down next to him, still in a fairly compact square. Tyler took a moment to inspect it, trying to decide whether to ignore his OCD based anxieties surrounding the floor, and to Josh’s delight, he managed to lower himself down onto the towel, hugging his knees close to his chest.

“Is it okay if I watch?”  
“Sure thing darling, whatever you wanna do. Plus it’s nice to spend time together, hey?” Josh went back to pairing his socks under Tyler’s watchful stare.

If he was honest, Josh liked doing laundry. He’d grown up doing his family’s laundry, and admittedly that had been under abusive conditions, but it didn’t change the fact that it was a routine he was used to, and there was something about being able to see the difference in the before and after that was oddly rewarding. He liked laundry day.

“Did you miss me Josh?”  
“Did I miss you? When, whilst you were in the front room?”  
“When I was at Campbell,” Tyler picked at his nail, avoiding eye contact.  
“I missed you every second of every day. I missed you in the morning and I missed you at night, and I missed you whilst I was at work and whilst I was cooking and whilst I was at church and whilst I was working out. I missed you when I was on the train and I missed you when I was at the grocery store and I missed you when I was walking down the ward’s corridor away from you after my visits. I missed you all the time Ty,”  
“Did you actually?”  
“I actually did.”

Josh managed to finish matching the final pair of socks and scooped the pile up then put it in the basket, ready to take upstairs, but rather than move onto ironing his shirts, he stayed sat on the floor with Ty.

“Sometimes, um, sometimes I think that, uh, that maybe it’s easier for you when I’m not here,”  
“Easier, what do you mean by easier?” Josh wanted to fully understand the questions Tyler was asking him.  
“I complicate everything. When you’re on your own, you, you can go to bed when you want and do the laundry when you want and cook when you want, and, a-and generally just not have to be constantly responsible for someone who can’t cope with anything. I make everything harder.”  
“Of course it’s different when you’re not here, not easier, it’s different and by different I mean worse, far far worse.”

“You’re just saying that.”  
“I’m acknowledging the fact that no, it’s not easy to be your husband, but it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me Ty. You’re my whole world. And it’s not easy, sometimes it’s very very hard, but you’re so worth the effort and I wouldn’t want my life any other way,” Josh wanted to reach out and stroke his husband’s quivering face, but restrained himself.

“When you were in the hospital, it wasn’t a respite for me, it wasn’t like I was finally able to relax after trying to manage your relapse - it was horrible Ty. I was completely alone. Yes I could choose when I ate and when I went to bed and all the other things you said, but when I ate I just sat at the table and faced your empty chair in silence with nobody to ask about my day, and when I went to bed I would reach over to your pillow and you weren’t there and my heart would sink. It was empty and quiet and crap.” He never cussed but it was appropriate.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler whispered and Josh saw there were tears in his eyes, so extended a hand towards him, which he took, and Josh squeezed.

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, you don’t need to apologise for getting admitted babe, not ever. All I’m trying to demonstrate is that I love having you here. It’s not easy all the time, I’d be lying if I said this was always easy, but I promise you that it’s always worthwhile, yeah? The bad days are outweighed by the good, and they make me appreciate your stable mental health days even more.”

He knew the voices were being loud, so he gave Tyler some time to process everything he’d just said and potentially think of something to say in response.

After a minute, Tyler was still staring at the floor in front of him with tear glazed eyes, and eventually Josh prompted him.

“You okay?” He accompanied the question with a hand squeeze.  
“I’m getting bad again,”  
“You’re not baby, you’re not. You had a relapse, but now you’re back on track, yeah? And of course the change from Campbell to home is causing a little bit of a wobble, so you need to give yourself more time to acclimatise, but you’re on the right trajectory sweetheart.”  
“The trend though, I, I, I had my long admission to Cygnet, then I managed so many years until needing a second admission, but then I only lasted a year between that one and this admission, and, and I’m gonna have even less time until my fourth admission, and even less time until my fifth, and I’m gonna be in hospital more and more and more until they just send me to long term residential treatment.”

Josh sighed.

“Admission 2 being relatively close to admission 3 doesn’t mean that you’re doomed for a long term residential placement Ty. A fourth admission isn’t inevitable, we just have to do a really good job of getting you settled now, and I think you agreeing to attend day patient is a huge step in the right direction that I’m so so proud of you for taking.”

“It’s not gonna be enough, it’s not gonna be fast enough,”  
“Fast enough? Love, this isn’t a race, there’s no rush,”  
“But you said the good days outweigh the bad, what happens when the bad outweigh the good? Each bad day that passes is another one to add to the count, and soon there’s gonna be more bad days and then I won’t be worth it anymore and you’ll leave and-“  
“I’m not leaving.”  
“You will!”  
“I’m not leaving.” Josh left no room for error.

“I didn’t mean that I’ve been keeping track of the stable days verses the unstable ones, I meant that on those truly horrific days, you know the ones, the days where you’re so submerged in psychosis that you can’t recognise me, and you’re self harming and trying to kill yourself and I spend the whole day pinning you to the floor to stop you hurting yourself - on those days I think about all our happy memories together in order to get me through it.” He explained to his fragile husband.

“But thankfully, those days are rare. And yes, you have a lot of unhappy days, like today, when the voices are being a pain and you’re anxious, but I still cherish these days because of simple blessings like getting to sit with you, and hold your hand, and talk to you.” Josh spoke honestly.

“Please don’t ever let your brain consider the idea that I only love you when you’re completely healthy and I’m just tolerating you for the rest of the time. I love you when you’re healthy, I love you when you’re hospitalised, I love you when you’re hysterical, I love you when you’re anxious, I love you when you’re compulsive, I love you when you keep me up all night, I love you when you don’t see the point and I love you when you’re sick and tired of it all. I love you. No ifs ands or buts. I love you Tyler Dun-Joseph, every single part of you, excluding nothing without exception.”

“I get so worried.”  
“I think that’s an understatement bubba,” Josh smiled sympathetically. “Come here,”

Tyler abandoned his towel and moved so that he was sitting in Josh’s lap, with Josh’s arms around his waist as he melted against him, his head in the crook of Josh’s neck.

He held him like that for a little while, listening to his small shaking breaths, then he kissed Tyler’s forehead and started softly speaking again, not wanting to overwhelm him with a loud voice right next to his ear, so whispering.

“I’ve shown you before and I’ll show you again, I’ll show you as many times as you need and more - I’m not going anywhere, okay? You’re the love of my life Tyler, you’re my best friend and I need you, I need you so much, and of course I don’t like it when you’re struggling, but that’s only because I can see how desperate you are to be healthy and I want you to be the best you can be for yourself. Nobody wants their partner to be unhappy, but I’m not gonna leave when you are, I’m gonna be here at every step I promise.”

“I want to get better so we can do fun stuff together again,” Tyler’s voice was small but Josh’s smile was growing. “I want to be well enough for us to go on dates again, and laugh, and enjoy being with each other.”  
“I want that too,” Josh whispered back.  
“Right now everything is just, it, it, it’s a lot, and I’m too busy thinking about how bad everything is to realise and be grateful for being with you again.”  
“Everything can feel bad, I understand that, but in actuality things are getting so much better every day. The adjustment period is inevitably difficult, but you’re handling this like a boss and I’m so proud of you Ty, so so proud.”

“I’m sorry I make everything hard.”  
“Don’t apologise, never apologise,” Josh brushed his finger along Tyler’s jaw fondly. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for. Really I should be thanking you for giving my life some context and prompting me to value and appreciate the little things more.”  
“I know it’s harder on you than you let on,”  
“The best things in life never come easy, but you didn’t walk away when I was struggling with my sexuality and pushing you away, and I’m not moving an inch just because you’re having a rough patch now Ty. We’re a team, through the good and the bad, yeah? What are we?”  
“A team,” Tyler whispered and Josh kissed his temple.

 

 

  
“How much?”  
“As much as you want baby,”  
“But, but, but like, uh, but like a lot?” Tyler asked timidly and Josh stopped mixing the 10 different ingredients together for his sauce and put his silver whisk down to go over and help his husband, who was sat at the kitchen table with a big ceramic bowl in front of him.

He was making cookies whilst Josh made sticky sesame chicken and rice for dinner. Tyler didn’t especially like baking, but he was in need of a distraction and so Josh had set the fragile man up with his own recipe that he had perfected over the years written out in his leather notebook, and with all the ingredients weighed out in little dishes. Pretty much all Tyler needed to do was pour them each into the bowl and mix it together, but understandably he was needing lots of reassurance throughout, and Josh didn’t mind dropping whatever he was doing to be by Tyler’s side.

“So I would say that a quarter of this pack would mean a few chocolate chips per cookie, and half this pack would mean a lot of chips per cookie. I didn’t measure it out for you so that you could decide, and I didn’t put a weight in my recipe because really it doesn’t matter, it’s just how chocolatey you want them to be.” Josh explained why he had given Tyler a pack of chocolate chips, rather than an exact measurement.

“Do I like it with lots of chocolate or not?” He couldn’t remember his own preferences.  
“Ohhhhh yeaaahh, you’re a big lover of chocolate chips, I’ve caught you sat up on the counter in the middle of the night just eating them straight out of the packet on multiple occasions.”  
“You can eat them raw?”  
“Well they’re already cooked sweetheart,”  
“Isn’t it cooking chocolate though?” Tyler frowned, looking at the packet. “Is it safe? Do I need to go to the hospital and get my stomach pumped?”  
“It’s completely safe,” Josh took the packet off him and held both his hands, trying to ground him a little.

“I don’t wanna get sick,”  
“You’re not gonna get sick,”  
“I might, I, I ate bad chocolate,”  
“You ate perfectly fine chocolate over a year ago, and you’re okay Ty. You don’t need to worry, I promise you that it’s completely safe. Do you trust me?”  
“I do, but, but, but, but,”  
“But you’re having irrational thoughts that you can’t quell, which isn’t your fault, and I’m here to provide some logic to those ideas that your brain keeps throwing up.” Josh squeezed his hands for a second.

“Are you sure it’s edible?” Tyler squeaked.  
“100% - I’ll eat a couple right now if you want me to prove-“  
“No! No, I don’t want you getting sick too!”  
“I won’t have any, not if you don’t want me to, but they’re safe Tyler, it’s just food babe, yeah?”

“Just food.” He echoed back hollowly and Josh waited patiently. “Nothing’s ‘just food’ anymore, all food is so hard.”  
“Why are you finding food so difficult at the moment, do you know?”  
“My head keeps telling me it’s poisoned, the, the voices keep whispering it’s poisoned,”  
“Like food poisoning as in from nasty bugs? Or poisoned by somebody trying to hurt you?”  
“Bugs, the, um, the bad guys aren’t coming after me anymore,”  
“I’m glad they’ve stopped sweetheart, and we’re gonna make sure the bugs leave you alone too,” Josh knew that sometimes it was just easier to go along with the delusions than upset Tyler even more by trying to convince him that nobody had actually been hunting him down like he thought.

“Uh, h, how do I keep the bugs away too?”  
“Well bugs are killed by the spray that I clean the counters with every single day, and they’re killed by heat when we cook our meals, and our amazing immune systems can kill them too, and finally taking all your meds will help you fend them off,”  
“Meds? Antibiotics?”  
“Antipsychotics,” Josh told him softly, watching for any reaction closely.

“Bugs are real though,”  
“Some are, yeah, but I promise that I store, prepare and cook meals carefully and so so cautiously, and I can promise you that I’m not gonna give you food poisoning.”

“Chicken, it’s, it’s, it’s really bad,”  
“You’re thinking about salmonella, and you know what kills salmonella?”  
“What?”  
“Heat. So I’m gonna cook the chicken super carefully, and you can tell if it’s not cooked because it won’t have turned white, and I’ve been using a different knife and a different chopping board so cross contamination is impossible.”

“H-how can you be so sure?”  
“I’ve been cooking every day for about a decade and I’ve never once given somebody food poisoning. All the food is fresh and in date, it’s all been kept either in the fridge or in a dry place, it’s all being cooked and prepared as per proper methods, I’m using different sets of equipment to deal with higher risk items like the chicken, and I’m cleaning as I go using antibac spray. I know what I’m doing baby,”

“I don’t want to eat it.” Tyler shied away from Josh, but he didn’t let go of his hands.  
“It’s sticky sesame chicken, it’s your favourite Ty, and it’s safe,”  
“I don’t want to.”  
“How about just the rice then? Hey? No chicken if you’re scared about the salmonella, but rice is safe,”  
“Rice is bad too,”  
“Reheated rice is bad, freshly cooked rice is good,”  
“Don’t make me.” His face crinkled up like he might be about to start crying, and immediately Josh dropped down to sit next to him, realising how much pressure he was applying by looming over him, gripping his hands, insisting he eat something he thought was poisoned.

“I’m sorry darling, I’m sorry, I’m not gonna make you, I’m sorry,” Josh softened and Tyler responded by crashing against his chest in emotional frustrated exhaustion, a small huff through his nose. “If you can’t then you can’t, I won’t make you. No pressure baby, I’m sorry,”

“I have to,”  
“You don’t bubba, we’ll save it for another night when you’re feeling up to it.”  
“I didn’t have breakfast, I didn’t keep lunch, I have to eat something, I, I’m compos enough to know that.”  
“What do you mean you didn’t keep lunch?” Josh cuddled his husband close. “We had ham sandwiches and grapes and yoghurt, I saw you eat babe,”

“When you were doing laundry I threw it up.”  
“You did? On purpose?”  
“Yeh,”  
“Oh Ty,”

His husband was underweight. His husband had always been underweight, but in that moment, with his hands wrapped around Tyler, he could feel each of his fragile bones like smoothed sea glass, threatening to protrude through his scarred skin with each shaking breath he gulped.

“It was making me sick,” he insisted with a vulnerable crack to his whisper. “The yoghurt, it, there were bugs from the cow, and, and, and, and, it was making me sick, so I had to get rid of it Josh, I had to,”  
“It’s OC-“  
“OCD obsessive thoughts, I know, and it’s dumb, I know-“  
“It’s not dumb, it’s an illness,”  
“...and I know I have to resist acting on the thoughts because otherwise they’re only going to get stronger and stronger, but what if this isn’t irrational? What if there really are bugs in all my food? What if the yoghurt was poisonous and what if the chicken has salmonella, because that happens, that really happens! And maybe I should just google how common food poisoning is because then I’ll know whether this is real or OCD - then I’ll know!”

Josh let Tyler spit out the stream of words. Once he finished, he didn’t say anything because Tyler had heard it all before, and he wanted to respect his husband’s ability to talk through the process on his own. He’d had his burst, then he’d have his fall, and then Josh would speak.

“But it’s only 3 weeks, right? How long a person can go without eating.”  
“Less for somebody underweight,”  
“And they’ll notice, at day patient, they’ll notice, so I’ll get committed again and they’ll place an NG tube again, and I’ll have to leave you again.”  
“Most likely.” Josh nodded.

“I don’t want that,”  
“I don’t want that either,” he sighed, letting his thumb stroke a comforting pattern against Tyler’s back.

“Why is nothing ever easy? Why does it always come to this point? The ‘either do the impossible or get sent away’ point.” Ty mumbled against Josh’s chest hopelessly.  
“It’s not impossible love, it’s scary, really scary, but you’re the bravest guy I know and you manage to do really scary things every day. I know you can do this.”  
“Everything’s a fight,”  
“And it’s so unfair, you don’t deserve to have to go through this, but you’re not on your own, okay? We’re in this together.”  
“Team,”  
“Team,” Josh nodded then kissed the top of his head.

“I think later, if it’s okay with you, I’ll call either Dr Wakefield or Amanda or Ryan up, someone we trust, and just let them know that eating is hard right now, and you’re resorting to purging as a management mechanism. That way we can make sure you’re getting supported enough during your lunch at the day patient clinic, and hopefully they’ll have some advice for how we can make this easier for you at home. They might be able to help us find some safe foods, or they might send us some of those high calorie fortisips to bulk up your intake, I’m not sure exactly what they’ll do, but they’ll help us out. Does that sound okay?”  
“Yeh,” Tyler said, much to Josh’s relief. He probably would have called them anyway, but it felt so much better to have his blessing.

“And as for today, you’re right, I think you do need to try and eat something because purging will have messed up your electrolytes and your meds are too strong to be in an empty stomach, but at this point I don’t care what you have. I can finish the chicken, I can get out any of the meals I put in the freezer earlier, I can make you something completely different, I can order takeout to be delivered from any place you want, or you can raid the kitchen for anything that you feel comfortable with. Maybe that’s dry cereal from the box, maybe that’s a block of cheese, maybe it’s a big ol bowl of mash potato. Whatever it is that you can manage, go for it, don’t be held back by the pressure of eating a ‘normal’ meal, okay babe?”

Tyler lifted his head up a little and Josh made eye contact with him, showing a small smile of reassurance as his husband’s brain ticked.

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know,”  
“Well what are some definite no’s?”  
“Meat, or, or fish. No dairy either.”  
“Okay, and do you have a preference, homemade or store bought?”

“Are cookies safe?”  
“Cookies are safe, absolutely. We’ve got Oreos, maybe half a pack of Chips Ahoy, I got into them last night as a midnight snack, and some Girl Scout thin mints.”  
“This though?” He gestured towards his bowl of cookie dough with his head. “Obviously I have to cook it first, but, but I made it, me, so I know I did it all safely, like I washed my hands, and I was careful, so, so, so it will be okay, right? Even though there’s egg?”  
“It’ll be delicious and safe, that I know for sure.” Josh was proud of Tyler for trusting himself and his baking abilities.

“I’m not sure, I, I,”  
“How about we whack them in the oven, then we can decide once they come out again? It does no harm to cook them.”  
“But first I want to add chocolate chips,”  
“Then add chocolate chips you shall do my love,” he reached out and grabbed the packet, then put it in Tyler’s trembling hand and watched proudly as he shook a few chunks into the bowl at a time.

 

 

 

“I can rub your belly for you?” Josh offered, throwing his socks in the empty laundry basket in their bathroom and walking over to the bed, climbing up next to his husband, so grateful to not be on his own any longer.

He didn’t care that Tyler always stole the covers when he rolled over, he didn’t care that he had a tendency to sleep in starfish position, he didn’t care that he would probably wake up screaming several times during the night - Tyler was there and that was all Josh needed to feel happy.

“I tried so hard to get it down, I don’t want it to come back up,”  
“It won’t darling, it won’t, you just haven’t felt full in so long that you’ve forgotten what it’s like. It’s not nice, but you’re not gonna vomit I promise,” he reassured him. “Do you want me to have a go at massaging? It might help?”  
“Will you stop if I say stop?”  
“I’ll stop the second you want me to.”  
“O-okay then,” Tyler bravely allowed him, and so Josh sat up and twisted himself round so that he was facing Ty, then placed his flat palm on his solar plexus and slowly but lovingly started moving back and forth against the ever so slightly convexly curved chest and abdomen.

There were scars everywhere, and not just white lines, but bumpy raised keloid scars that stood up, bold and aggressive, purple in colour. It made for a strange sensation against his hand. And although it did make his heart hurt, it made it ache a lot, Josh was used to the spectacle of a striped man and went to some effort to not draw Tyler’s attention to it. If he did, Tyler would rush to cover up again, most likely to the stinking hoodie, and probably wouldn’t feel comfortable enough to strip his top off again for some time.

“Is this okay?”  
“Uh huh,” he nodded calmly in response to the massage.

He had eaten 6 of the 8 cookies that the recipe had produced, Josh having the other 2, then he had raided the branded cookie stash and finished off the Chips Ahoy and the whole pack of Oreos, and made a decent dent in the thin mints before throwing the towel in. It was a considerable binge for Tyler, but he had been so deprived of calories that Josh knew his body was just forcing him to do what it needed to stop him wasting away. He didn’t want to eat that many cookies, but once he got a taste for calories, he couldn’t stop himself, and Josh wasn’t surprised that he was feeling nauseous afterwards. He’d taken the Pepto-Bismal that Josh had dug out of the cupboard, but he wasn’t getting any benefit.

“I feel sick,”  
“I know bubba, I know. If you’d like then I can make you some peppermint tea? It supposedly helps with bloating.”  
“We have that??”  
“Yeah, I started drinking it when you were in the hospital.”  
“Oh,” Tyler said, and Josh gave him time to process that there had been a change whilst he was away. It was only a tiny change but he knew Tyler would be upset by it anyway. He hated feeling like Josh was growing whilst he was resetting.

“My sister recommended it,” Josh gave some details. “I’m not a huge fan, I’ll probably just stick to the coffee, but there’s a bunch of teabags left if you want to try,”  
“Did you meet up? With Ashley, when I was away.”  
“No, we tried but I was so busy with work and visiting you and just life in general, and the few times I was available, she was feeling too anxious to risk meeting me, so we couldn’t make it work, but we emailed a couple of times.”

“How is she?”  
“Having a bit of a rough time of things,” Josh told him honestly, still rubbing his stomach comfortingly.  
“How come?”  
“Home stuff, don’t worry about it,”  
“What stuff?” Tyler was insisting.  
“Mom hurt Abigail pretty bad about a month back, and she had to stay in the hospital for a few days, so there was lots of talk about police involvement but thankfully it didn’t come to anything.”  
“It’s good they let her go to the hospital. They never let you.” Tyler appreciated the details of the scenario, and thankfully didn’t call him out for his desire to keep the police out of it all.

They’d had the argument multiple times before but Josh refused to change his mind. If the heathen police came then his parents would panic, and if they panicked then things would only get worse for his youngest two siblings who still lived under their roof.

“She was unconscious for a long while, bleeding a lot, so they didn’t have much choice but to get her some help - can we not talk about this please?”  
“Sorry, course, sorry”

“What are you feeling about that peppermint tea?” Josh moved the conversation along, not allowing his mind to dwindle on the image of Abigail being pushed down into the basement and cracking her head on a cement step. He wasn’t going to think about it. He wasn’t going to let himself think about it.

“If I have any more food or drink I think I might burst,” Tyler didn’t mean it as a hyperbole, Josh could tell that he was scared of it becoming literal.  
“Alright sweetheart, do you just want to try and sleep it off?”  
“What choice do I have?”  
“Well we could try having a bath? Sometimes I find that can help when I’m feeling stuffed,”  
“We? Together?”  
“I meant I could bathe you, but yeah, absolutely we can get in together if you want,”  
“Will we fit?”  
“The tub is a master one or whatever, it’s meant for two, we used to bathe together all the time, like pretty much every week. You liked lighting a bunch of candles and pouring fancy lavender bubbles in and trying to make it all romantic, and I liked putting my foot in your face and making you smell my toes, just to annoy you,”

“Why did I marry you?” Tyler whispered with a little laugh that made Josh grin. He liked happy sounds.

“Because who else is gonna give you belly rubs?” Josh smirked at him, “And I vaguely remember you saying you’d marry me if I did your theology homework in senior year, so I think you were obliged by the law of pinky swear,”  
“If only I got a proper tutor then maybe I wouldn’t be stuck with you,”  
“You love me really,”  
“I do,” Tyler smiled honestly.

“You okay here for a minute if I go and start filling the bath?”  
“I’m okay,”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy first day of summer to all my northern hemisphere buddies 
> 
> June marks a very exciting and very nervous time for me: discharge from inpatient. My current discharge date is set for the 10th (ahhhhhhh!!!!) and I have a few overnight leaves including tonight to make sure I can manage okay at home, so fingers crossed it all goes well. 
> 
> Enjoy this second post in a week (and mourn for the days when I used to post at least twice a week every single week for months....)
> 
> Maisie xx
> 
> Twitter: anathemasparks  
> Tumblr: anathematrash  
> Email for fanart: ao3.maisie@gmail.com (ahh ilysm, thank you!!)


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